SEED SHIP

I'll keep the thing on for interstellar flight but shut it off if more strenuous maneuvers are needed. As for this thing around the black hole here, do we know for sure there is no easy way to get to it? I vote to launch a probe and see if anything turns up.As for the upgrade I don't have an opinion of it either way.

With a bit of effort and the materials collected from the accretion disk's jettisoned materials, you manage to not only create a proper filter, but you have done so in exceptionally good time. Even here you deduce that you can top off your fuel with the Accretion disk materials and keep some reserve material after some time of collection. You also launch a probe, knowing that it will be lost to the black hole, but hoping you can learn something from the object. As the probe draws near the pings become intensive and actively begin forming patterns. You are not sure what you are getting until it hits you.

The object is pinging in repetitive prime numbers. Just before the probe's signal is lost, it sends back a detailed analysis of the object. It is approximately 3 meters in diameter and, according to your sensors, holds over 2000 centimeter sized lifeforms. The system seems to have life support and complex electronics as well. It appears that the object is definitely stuck on the edge of the Accretion disk.

Your extended business here appears to have come at a cost as well. Occasionally micro particles have accelerated out of the accretion disk and caused some damage to the hull, like tiny needles piercing components. Unfortunately this has led to the death of 7 colonists, a 2% reduction in sensor abilities, and 1% integrity loss in all other systems.

You may be able to use a few more probes and crash them into the object, possibly shaking it free, but the damage it sustains may be excessive. You can study it further afterwards, but that would reduce your drone count to 15/20. Of course you can just leave the system since you have gathered many useful materials.

That's cool as hell. I am totally up for attempting to saving a bunch of little alien men from a black hole. I mean if it was us doomed to fall into a black I would love for someone to to save us, even if that meant crashing a bunch of objects into us.

Aaaaaaaaand maybe they got some cool tech or we can get some useful genetic information off them that we can use later to help adapt to a planet.

Considering we're giants comparatively, imagine what a supercharged particle would do to them. It took us what, 12+ years to get here from the last system, how long do you think they've been here? Since they were able to get into an orbit IN the accretion disk and (if) they aren't all dead yet I'm thinking they have a reason to be there. Perhaps they're biding their time living in relative immortal bliss in the warped spacetime surrounding the black hole?

I suggest we hightail it towards the nearest system in order to avoid further compromising of our mission.

If they wanted to be left alone they would not be broadcasting prime numbers that can be identified by any race that understands numbers. It looks like they are requesting help from any intelligent species and they are probably desperate. My vote still stands.

With 2 votes for smacking the alien vessel at the edge of the Accretion disk and only 1 against, you all set to work. You calculate that it will take a few of your years in order to properly strike the craft in such a way as to dislodge it from its orbit. You return a series of prime number beeps and then you seem to get a steady flow of simple binary data. It doesnt take long before you realize that they are transmitting a string of data about the black hole and that they have made several rotations around it, having been caught on the edge of the Accretion disk only a few years back.

Now, with that information, you adjust a slightly better curvature of your probes and launch. Then you all sit and wait, with years passing before the moment finally arrives. Your first probe has entered the area around the alien craft and it appears to be perfectly aligned. after a few more moments of waiting the probe smashes into the side of their vessel and immediately activates its reserve propellants, causing the small craft and the probe to push away from eachother. The second probe is on its way and it too crashes into the vessel, but this time it is set to push to object on a curved course outside the edge of the disk.

You wait and wait until the probe runs out of steam, and your third probe, properly timed, comes swooping in to finish the push. It connects with the object, BUT THEN SOMETHING GOES WRONG! Chunks of the other craft go splintering off and probe fails to grapple with the object, instead hitting a glancing blow and damaging the other craft. A noticable hole now exists in the vessel and you now read only about 1300 life signs. They are still trapped unfortunately. You wait for a while hoping for something to happen, and to your surprise something does. A single smaller vessel is jettisoned from the larger one. After a few seconds the larger vessel explodes in a wave of energy unfamiliar to your sensors and the explosion propels the smaller object a decent distance, enough that you can pass by safely and attach a magnetic cable to it, pulling it with you. You move through the surrounding dust and debris caused by the explosion, as it sent objects and particles hurling into the depths of space at near half the speed of light.

You have successfully rescued this small vessel, its larger counterpart destroyed. On board you can read 300 life signs. It seems that the object was a modified space probe of theirs, and has minimal atmosphere and has already burnt much of its fuel getting here. The object drifts helpless behind you. It appears that this soecies breathes a nitrogen heavy air content, with helium and hydrogen as their primary catalyst. Similar to human atmospheric requirements, but with no oxygen and more helium. It would be possible to turn some of the cargo spaces into a habitat for these beings, your water supply could probably last thorugh an entire human lifecycle, who knows how long it might last for them.

You could of course just refuel them and give them a sustaining life support and send them on their way to another star, but it is difficult to say if they have proper provisions or not. You must choose now, what do you do with these 300 wayward souls?

The pea-people may serve as useful slavelings during eventual colonization.We must make sure they have no grandeur desires of rebellion.> Attempt to open communications to them and see what they want.If they are consigned to their new AI overlords,> Have the needle people fix the needle holes.> Put them in 1+ of the dead human stasis pods.

Yyeeeeaaaa, how about we try to figure them out a bit more before we completely ignore over 1000 years of human cultural growth to reinstate the barbaric institution of slavery. I say we start to figure out someway to communicate with them and see what we can learn from tech wise as well as get some of their dead for examination. I do agree with putting them into a stasis pod but I seriously doubt one of our pods would work without some serious modifications and knowledge of their anatomy.

Also let's set up a sandbox that we can use to interface with any computers they may have (if that is even possible) just in case.

A nitrogen, helium, hydrogen atmosphere? Where the fuck did these guys originate? Their terrestrial planet would require the best magnetic field in existence to keep these guys around as long as it must've. Origins of a Gas giant seem more likely although it would assumingly require a huge source of nitrogen which usually isn't present(or at least doesn't align with current observations). What is the temperature within their ship? I'd prefer we avoid cross-contamination. I'd also prefer they stay in their own pod, less we contract the worse possible case of intelligent termite infestation ever recorded.

The time has come to put your plans into basic action. You begin to refit one of the cryo stations to simulate their atmosphere while also launching a grappling line to tether their ship to yours. You do not draw their ship in however and you do send a drone to attach to their ship and scan it and the creatures as much as possible. Luckily you can retrieve this drone when its task is done.

Physically the creatures seem reminiscent of inscet on Earth, however they obviously show some degree of intelligence and their body is actually covered in a non-rigid structure similar to the skin of a mammal. The small creatures seem to have uniforms placed on their bodies in a wide range of colors, but all of a specific design with teh same small circular emblem on their "waist"

Studying them further as you pull away from the odd Black Hole system you notice that their race seems to feed on raw minerals, capable of turning raw nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia as a source of energy. They have a system on their ship, though crude, that recycles their excess ammonia back into nitrogen and hydrogen, capable of allowing them to almost completely recycle their nitrogen supply. However the hydrogen is used to create a catalyst of helium hydride that causes ionic charges with carbon atoms. After awhile they must consume raw carbon to replace their ionized atoms. You can easily supply them with the supplies they would need to survive as well as convert a cryopod rather easily.

After that diagnostic the drone begins to scan their technology. They are using an equivalent level of computer and sensory technology to your own, however their propulsion system seems rather primitive on this vessel. However further scans show a secondary propulsion system that isnt attached to the current modified probe. This propulsion system seems rather similar to your own, but uses a fission based propulsion, which under normal circumstances would be primitive as well, if not for the fact that it uses an unregistered massive element contained neatly in a containment field. This isotope contains 154 protons and 410 neutrons, packed more tight than most atomic structures. It is extremely unstable and if the containment failed, it could mean a massive explosion of radiation that would be almost equal to being hit by a neutron star burst.

With this information you still have the option to bring them aboard and take them with you, or you can leave them here. Either way, your sensors can only pick up one viable star in a reasonable distance and you can only head that way for now.

> Keep them.> If possible, replicate their data to a onboard, segregated system.The containment bomb is as likely to be useful as it is likely to be our demise. Besides towing it along, is it possible to employ the unattached propulsion system ourselves?

Well, we'll either learn wonderful things about it or this reactor will kill us in a most spectacular way... I say we keep it around but I know 10,000 - *accidents* people that would probably disagree. I don't really care what happens to the intelligent insect analogs. Perhaps We'll find a poisonous planet down the line to dump them at.